Christian Philosophy: Everyone Has a Philosophy. It's The Lens Through Which They View The World and Make Decisions. (3 page)

Putting your hope or trust in the principles and elements of this world is a wrong philosophy. It’s a wrong outlook, and the long-term effect is the deterioration of society. A large segment of society doesn’t believe in God, and even if they believe in
a
god, they don’t believe in heaven or hell. We’ve taken prayer out of schools and instead teach children to trust in the principles of this world. It’s no wonder our society is heading downhill fast.

Several years ago, two boys went into a high school in a Denver, Colorado, suburb and killed 13 people, and then they killed themselves before they could be captured. They thought they were avoiding prosecution, but, boy, did they miss it. They didn’t believe in God, and they had a wrong philosophy that led them to believe the end of this life was the end of all existence; so they committed suicide to avoid punishment for their crimes. But they didn’t escape anything. What they did was eliminate any opportunity for forgiveness and usher themselves straight into an eternity of torment and separation from God.

It’s a lot harder to get guns today than it was fifty years ago, but we never had shooting incidents in schools back then. Now, we have policemen and metal detectors in schools, but we’re seeing terrible violence. It has nothing to do with gun restrictions. It has to do with the removal of moral restrictions as a result of the ungodly worldviews being promoted in society today. It’s a philosophy issue.

Everywhere you look there is a new group trying to pass more laws in an attempt to control the way people behave. Some are even trying to pass laws about fatty foods and what is, or isn’t, acceptable to eat. For the most part, those people don’t have a godly worldview, and they think the answer to society’s problems is to create more legal restrictions and punishments. In the absence of Christian philosophy they are trying to come up with controls to limit immorality, but that is the wrong approach. Society doesn’t need more laws; the people in society need to embrace morality—specifically, a biblically based way of thinking.

Satan is destroying individuals and societies by leading people captive through ungodly philosophies and traditions. You’d think all Christians would understand the need to have an outlook that conforms to the Word of God, but I’m amazed how many believers don’t seem to get this. Everyone wants to be politically correct. People don’t want to tell anybody else that they are wrong, or that it is immoral to act in certain ways. The irony is that in a society where everyone is free to act however they want, the government is forced to intrude more and more into civil liberties in order to restrict unwanted behaviors. People without moral restraint have to be controlled by other means.

Unfortunately, you can see this process taking place in the United States and other Western countries. Some people seem to think that being free means being liberal in the way you think, but that’s not true. We have to control the way we think. The way people act is a result of how they think, and a thought process that says everything is permissible promotes immoral behavior, which then leads to the deterioration of society.

When the apostle Paul warned against being spoiled through philosophy, vain deceit, the traditions of men, and the rudiments of this world, he was saying, “Don’t think like a lost person. Don’t think the way the world thinks.” We need a biblical philosophy.

The world is filled with people who have no relationship with God, and therefore they have a very ungodly philosophy. People who think according to the principles of this world say God doesn’t exist, and they believe humans evolved by accident over billions of years. They don’t acknowledge God, and they don’t understand that we were created and designed by Him. To think this way is to think like a lost person.

The world’s way of thinking is not a comprehensive and rational philosophy. For instance, how does a society that goes to great lengths to promote the environment and protect even the most obscure animal species arrive at the conclusion that it’s okay to abort babies? The world’s way of thinking is a wrong philosophy, and it leads to wrong results. Some of the same people who yell about recycling think that having a baby is a choice, and if having a baby is inconvenient, they think it’s okay to kill the baby. Society needs to get its priorities straight. God gave us life. We are not just like the rest of creation, and we are not equal to animals.

I’ll be dealing with specific philosophies later on, but right now I just want to show how behavior comes from philosophy, and why having a Christian philosophy is important for believers. We can’t afford to think like the world thinks. We need to have a philosophy that focuses on God more than all of these secular ideas that are being promoted. The worldly attitudes being pushed on us go against a Christian way of thinking.

Many believers today are establishing a philosophy independently of God and separate from what the Word of God teaches. I read about the results of a survey that questioned people about how they established their theology. The survey was only given to people who identified themselves as born-again Christians, and they were asked how they formed their opinions. The majority of people said they just come up with their own philosophy based on life experiences and their own way of thinking. One question asked if they adhere to the Word of God as being absolute, and only a small percentage answered yes. Remember, these were people who identified themselves as born-again Christians.

Instead of getting their philosophy from the Word of God, these people were basing it on how they were raised, what they had been taught in school, books they had read, and the study of principles from other world religions. They had established their philosophy piecemeal. People are taking a buffet-style approach to the assembly of ideas, and that’s not a good idea. If you do that, Satan is going to spoil you. He’s going to take from you what Jesus has already purchased, and what belongs to you by right of inheritance.

A Christian philosophy must be rooted in the Word of God. You can’t form a proper Christian worldview without renewing your mind in the Word of God. When Jesus was praying to the Father, He said, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). I just can’t overemphasize how important it is for us to conform our minds to the Word of God, and not to the philosophies and principles of this world.

Unfortunately, a lot of Christians aren’t looking to the Word for their philosophy. They have bought into Satan’s deception that the Word of God contains bits and pieces of truth, but it isn’t completely accurate. They think it’s outdated because it was written 2,000 years ago, and that it can’t possibly have wisdom for modern society. In fact, some don’t believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, or that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation—they say He is one of many ways. That’s a wrong philosophy, and Satan will use that perspective to come into your life and steal from you.

Psalm 91 says, “…His truth shall be thy shield and buckler” (v. 4).
The Word of God and the promises it contains are our armor and protection against the attacks of the enemy. The Word is 100% accurate, it’s totally relevant, and it is the only thing Christians should be basing their lives upon. The way you change your core values and obtain a Christian philosophy is by conforming your worldview to the Word of God, instead of just leaning on your own understanding.

If you want to see the results the Word of God promises, then you have to adopt God’s way of thinking. I have conformed my philosophy to the Word, and it’s working. My health is great, I’m seeing the miraculous power of God, my stock investments have gained 61% in value while the world has been crying about a financial crisis, I’m happy, I’m joyful, my relationships are good, life is good, and God is blessing me in every area of my life. I’m not bragging, I’m just trying to give an example that conforming your way of thinking to the Word of God works. I’m not special—you can have the same results because God doesn’t play favorites. All I’ve done is put God first and recognize that I’m not smart enough to direct my own life. I just do what God tells me to do, instead of doing what makes sense to me, or what I feel like doing.

Being a Christian isn’t about changing your outward appearance. It isn’t about what you do and how you act. If you don’t change the wrong concepts and the belief system on the inside, then you’re going to have the same results in your life you had before you were saved. That’s why God gave us His Word—to change the way we think. The Word of God contains His thoughts, His values, and His way of thinking. It’s our ticket to a new life.

I don’t care what society says is right or wrong, I follow what God says. Society may say homosexuality is just another lifestyle, or that a homosexual union is just as important as a marriage between a man and a woman, but God’s Word says differently. If you subscribe to the world’s view instead of God’s, then the devil is going to steal from you. The world is trying to say that there are many paths to God, and we need to embrace other philosophies. God’s Word says we should be on our guard against any philosophy that isn’t modeled after Jesus Christ. The world is trying to say the Bible represents an outdated standard of morality; they want to pretend that we’ve “evolved” beyond the Bible, and now we should just embrace life.

The world’s philosophies are simply an attempt by the devil to undermine the Word of God—which is the same thing Satan did to Adam and Eve. The enemy wants to strip you of the armor and protection of God’s Word so that he can plunder your life and steal what Jesus has already won for you. Jesus said,

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Matthew 7:18-19

The fruit of a tree is directly related to the tree itself. In the same way, you aren’t going to get the fruit of God’s manifold blessings if your core belief system is conformed to the world’s way of thinking. You need a Christian philosophy. If you aren’t seeing the fruit in your life that you would like to see, then all you have to do is change the way you think in your heart and adopt God’s way of looking at life. Once you do that, the fruit will come.

Conforming your way of thinking to God’s Word will bring a harvest of blessings in your life, but they don’t all come overnight. The natural law of sowing and reaping means that it takes time for a seed to grow into a fruit-bearing plant, and there is a similar spiritual law of sowing and reaping. God provides miracles when there isn’t time to wait for a harvest, like healing sickness, but God’s best is for you to walk in His blessings daily. For instance, it is better to walk in health and never need healing than it is to get sick and need a miracle. Likewise, it is better to have money in the bank to meet all of your needs than it is to need a miracle to pay your rent every month. Even after you renew your mind, it may take time to get to where you don’t need a miracle every month, but don’t get discouraged. Scripture says,

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Galatians 6:9

This means we have to stay focused on God and meditate on His Word to maintain our Christian perspective and reap the fruit God desires for us. If you are willing to do that, and you change the way you think at the heart level, then you will see God’s blessings in your life—guaranteed.

I challenge you to prayerfully consider the Christian philosophies I present in the rest of this book and embrace them. It will change the way you think, which will change the rest of your life.

Why Should I Care About Philosophy?

I
went to Poland a number of times in the 1980s before the Berlin Wall came down, when Poland was still under communist rule. I stuck out in my cowboy boots and, of course, the moment I opened my mouth people knew I was an American. Americans were an unusual sight for the Polish people, and they were always gathering around me in curiosity. I wanted to blend in better and get a feel for what life was really like in Poland, so I borrowed some clothes from my interpreter. Then I went out into public wearing his clothes and stayed completely silent so that I could try to pass myself off as Polish.

The interpreter and I started walking down the street and within five minutes a crowd of young people had gathered around me saying, “American! American!” I was wearing Polish clothes and I hadn’t said a word, but they could still tell I was an American.

I said to my interpreter, “How do these people know I’m an American?”

“It’s your attitude,” he said.

“What do you mean my attitude?” I asked. “I haven’t said or done anything.”

“You don’t understand. We’ve lived under communist rule for over 70 years,” he said. He went on to explain how they had learned to be afraid under the oppression of communism. They never made eye contact with strangers when walking down the street because they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. They even took on submissive body language. They didn’t walk down the street with their heads up and their shoulders square; they stooped and looked at the ground. They didn’t start conversations with strangers, because the person might have been KGB. All of their mannerisms were aimed at being as inconspicuous as possible.

I wasn’t doing any of those things. I was standing on the street corner looking people in the eye and smiling. I was nodding my head at strangers to say hello. My positive attitude was coming through without speaking a word to anyone, and they could tell I was an American. My philosophy was evident—and so was theirs.